As they trod down the grass for a camping spot a streak of white gleamed in the gloomy nightmare of the garden and a flock of white egrets swept gracefully out into the gilding rays of the setting sun. A hundred in number, perhaps, they swerved in dignified fashion and in their ineffably beautiful posture of flying, necks gently bent backward and long legs trailing delicately, flew away to the west. They were beginning to rise for a long flight when a harsh rattle of shots broke the evening quiet. Pop-pop-pop! Repeating shotguns worked at full speed. The flock crumpled and broke and a score of the beautiful birds came crashing down in shapeless, broken lumps. And then, too late to prevent the crime, darkness was upon the scene. Dawn revealed the interior of the Devil's Playground apparently less forbidding than in the gloaming, and Payne and Higgins plunged to their task as soon as breakfast was over. A hard spit of land ran northwest, from the saw grass and they followed it till it ended abruptly at a narrow gully filled to the brim with liquid mud. Swiftly and skillfully they bridged the space with saplings and branches, a process which they were forced to repeat at intervals throughout the forenoon. Luncheon they ate seated on cypress roots in water up to their knees; and soon after Higgins put a bullet between the yellow eyes of a panther which glared at them from its hiding place. Snakes and alligators were in abundance; for miles there was no sign of other life. "They named it right," panted Higgins in a pause. "Yes; come on!" Now they had come to the "flowerpots" of the Playground, beautiful grass plots interwoven with delicate blooms and ringed about with water lilies. Into the first one Payne went with a splash to his armpits; the grass was only a treacherous skin above a hole of liquid mud, from which Higgins with difficulty drew his employer. For an hour or more they threaded their way, cautiously between these beautiful traps. Then, they found themselves on the brink of a gully a hundred yards in width; and Payne, driving ahead at full speed, cried out in anguish as he realized how they were stopped. "Hold on," said Higgins. "That ground on the other side is higher, and it looks to me like a different formation. Yes; it's limestone with sand on top. Cheer up!" Payne threw a dry branch onto the mud and it sank immediately. Wearily he turned at right angles to the trail and led the way in a search for the end of the gully. For a mile they followed the barrier of mud, then Higgins called a halt. "Look at this formation." He pointed to a slight swell in the level monotony of the swamp. "If that showed in any human country I'd say it was the beginning of a little ridge." The slight rise ran to the edge of the gully, where it was broken, and appeared again on the farther side of the mud.